usually have a gender associated with them, usually called GÉNERO or GÉNERO GRAMATICAL. All nouns fall into three gender categories: masculine, feminine or invariant nouns. As a general rule, we recognize the gender of a “Sustantivo” by looking at its ending. Masculine words usually end in the vowels E or O like PADRE and MAESTRO, whereas feminine words end with the vowel A such as HERMANA and CASA. The picture below shows some examples of common masculine and feminine nouns in Spanish.
Masculine nouns, los sustantivos masculinos, usually end in the letters -N, -O, -R, -S, -R, –L. Some examples masculine nouns are CORAZÓN (heart) and CARRO (heart). Other nouns end in the syllables –MA, -PA and –TA like the word PROBLEMA. However, there are also some feminine nouns that may end in those letters such as: CARCEL (jail) and MAMÁ (mom). There are always exceptions to the rules so in a real context you just need to pay attention to certain clues to determine the gender of a word such as the the or that precedes the word, or even the that accompany it. If you read the sentence “Él es mi papá”, just by looking at the pronoun ÉL in the sentence you can infer we are talking about a masculine noun.
In general you will not see or listen to isolated words in the language so those words that accompany “los sustantivos” will be the key to know their gender, “su género”. Here are some examples of sentences using a few words with masculine gender.
Sentences using masculine nouns Carr o (ends in -o) – El carro rojo es suyo The red car is his Coraz ón (ends in –o -n) – Mi corazón está saludable My heart is healthy Col or (ends in -o -r) – Mi color favorito es el verde Green is my favorite color Plane s (ends in -s) – Tengo planes para hoy I have plans for today Art e (ends in – e) – Amo el arte I love art Pince l (ends in -l) – Este es mi pincel This is my brush Ma pa (ends in -pa) – Un mapa antiguo An old map Proble ma (ends in -ma) – Tenemos un gran problema We have a big problem Plane ta (ends in -ta) – Es un planeta gigante It is a giant planetFeminine nouns, los sustantivos femeninos, usually end in the letters -A, -DAD, -TAD, -ED, -SION, -CION, -DEZ, -TIS, -IZ and some end in -E too. Again, these endings are not absolute so you may find some “sustantivos” with a masculine gender ending in those letters. Here are a few examples:
Sentences using feminine nouns Casa (ends in -a) – Su casa es muy grande Her house is very big Amistad (ends in -tad) – Nuestra amistad es importante Our friendship is important Pared (ends in -ed) – La pared de la cocina The kitchen’s wall Misión (ends in -sión) – Esa es la nueva misión That’s the new mission Canción (ends in -ción) – ¿Te gusta la canción? Do you like the song? Honestidad (ends in -dad) – ¿Qué es la honestidad? What’s honesty? Actriz (ends in -iz) – Ella es actriz She is an actressFinally, some nouns have both masculine and feminine gender. They are usually called SUSTANTIVOS INVARIABLES. The article or pronoun that is placed before them help us determine their gender and meaning. Some of them change their meaning depending on the article they are used with, for example, for the noun CURA which seems to be a feminine noun, if we add the article EL then it describes a priest (EL CURA), but if we add the feminine article LA then it becomes cure (LA CURA). Here are a few examples:
Sentences using invariant nouns Student (ends in -e) - She is a student She is a student Student (ends in -e) - He is a student He is a student dentist (ends in -a) - Carlos is Carlos dentist is a dentist